


talk in tongues and quiet sighs

by cartoonheart



Category: The Hour
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-21
Updated: 2014-02-21
Packaged: 2018-01-13 05:36:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1214653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cartoonheart/pseuds/cartoonheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He can remember those lips, those hands, that <i>everything</i> about Alexis Storm. She is cold and hot and mild and tempestuous. Randall feels invisible near her, like he has been broken down atom by atom in her presence. He is reduced to the fractions of his parts, and even then he still grasps for her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	talk in tongues and quiet sighs

**Author's Note:**

> Set just prior to the start of Series 2 (after Randall arrives, but before Freddie comes back).
> 
> Any inaccuracies in canon are my own and I apologise in advance. This is only the second time I've written Lix and Randall.

She stares right through him like he isn't even there, and maybe he's not, to her. 

Maybe he is just a husk of a man, battered and ruined by war, both that external to himself and the internal battle that he still cannot shake. Randall's hands flit to his tie, adjusting, smoothing. It is an old habit, a comfort, and though sometimes it provides reassurance, this time it doesn't.

She stands there, all legs and elongated fingers. Cigarette smoke curls around her, twisting in a silver haze. Her lips purse, and Randall feels himself shudder. It would have been obvious enough to anyone, except that she doesn't look at him if she can help it, and so she doesn't see.

He can remember those lips, those hands, that _everything_ about Alexis Storm. She is cold and hot and mild and tempestuous. Randall feels invisible near her, like he has been broken down atom by atom in her presence. He is reduced to the fractions of his parts, and even then he still grasps for her.

These meetings are curses, he thinks, although necessary. He stands at the back of the newsroom, lets Ms Rowley do the talking. She is more than capable and knows how to lead her team. Randall's too distracted today to be much use anyway. That thought angers him. He's not used to being distracted, to being thrown off balance. But it is London, it is her, that does this to him. He smoothes his tie again. 

These are the moments where he regrets his decision to return. But as soon as the job offer had arrived, he knew he would not say no. Because while for years Paris had been his home, London had always been where _she_ was and therefore where his heart had been. 

That's the problem, he knows. She is the key to unlocking everything. It is both paralysing and deliciously tempting, like Pandora's Box. Only he already knows what is inside and just has to gather up the courage to face it. There are years of ancient history, the threat of the present, a failed marriage proposal, a _child_. And yet Lix still looks through him, around him, like he is an illusion that she is determined not to acknowledge. He cannot bear it even if he can understand it.

It is impossible to gain her attention if she does not want to give it and she is rougher around the edges now than she used to be. He doesn't like to think that perhaps he had made her that way. But this situation isn't working for him. Randall knows what he has to do, but is loathe to do it. She will hate him, if she doesn't already, and it is a thought he can't bear.

He admits that Lix will talk to him about work, if posed a direct question, in the presence of others. She has put up the charade that he is nothing to her, and he admires her dedication to the lie. But she makes an art form of ensuring that she is never in the same room alone with him. There is always Hector or Bel as a buffer, and she is more than willing to glide out at the first sign of trouble if she has to. Besides, when she is nearby he can't stop fidgeting with things even more than usual: his books, his glasses, his cuff links. It is impossible to stop. Perhaps she makes the symptoms worse, perhaps she doesn't, but he'll swallow it all if he has to, if only not to be a ghost to her any more.

Randall finds himself outside her office one evening. It is late and most of the others have already left, but her light is on through the door and he can hear the clatter of her typewriter, rhythmic and practised. His feet feel like lead at the threshold, a sense of foreboding and reluctance weighing them to the scuffed linoleum. There is a thumbtack pressed into the wood of her door frame and he idly wonders how it got there. It is a distraction, a delaying tactic, he knows.

He knocks, the surface hard under his knuckles. The keystrikes stop. He waits.

He pictures her weighing up her options, whether to deny him entry. Surely, she knows, in a way that only a woman could know, that it must be him. Only he would knock. Only he would be at the office this late. Randall also knows that she will let him in - if only as a display of power, to show that she is not afraid of seeing him. Lix has never been good at admitting weakness, and although Randall won't flatter himself, he knows that his presence hasn't been easy on her either.

"Come in," she calls out eventually, brisk and cold, betraying nothing.

The door handle turns slowly under his shaking hand. He brushes the thumbtack with his fingertip as he goes by, like a charm.

Her office, to him, is chaos, but it is a representation of all the things he still loves about her, even after all these years. It is books and papers and photographs. It is empty bottles and glasses, and the ends of cigarettes still smouldering. It is the dust particles that hover in the air through the last strips of sunshine of the late summer evening.

Leaning back in her chair Lix glares suspiciously at him from behind her winged glasses, a new addition to her face since he first knew her. It is age that does this to them, Randall knows, and he also knows that time hasn't been as kind to him as it has been to her. He feels old and hollow, paper thin in places, even though he doesn't drink anymore, hardly smokes. He still feels ridiculous next to her, like he always used to - she, a full bodied picture of health, like a rich red wine, a languid Sunday afternoon.

He hasn't prepared what to say. Randall had hoped that the words would poetically come to him. He seeks inspiration like a bolt of lightning, but there is nothing.

Lix is only satisfied to wait for so long.

"What are you doing here, Randall?"

"Your light was on," he replies, in so far as it is the truth. 

"No, what are you doing _here_?" Her last word is laced with meaning, and she stands as if to emphasise it even more. What is he doing in her world, in her life, in her city? What is he doing dredging up memories of the past? These are clearly her questions. 

Randall has never articulated his reasons out loud before. Even in his own mind they are cloudy behind the memories of a younger her. Those memories are sharp and focused and embodied with such power that they cause his stomach to drop in response, a knee-jerk reaction that makes his heart palpitate wildly. How does she still have this effect on him after all these years?

The real answer to her question is simple, of course. In his life, he has loved only her, and that is the truth of it. Randall knows it as one of the most unwavering facts that sums up his existence, much like his birth date or his eye colour. It is a fact unaltered and unchanged by time, even in periods of his life where he thought it had been forgotten. 

He chokes out his response, slowly, eventually. "I needed to see you." He doesn't like how the words echo around the room.

"And so you take the job as Head of News? Surely there could have been an easier way? That is, assuming I wanted to see you too." There is an accusation in her tone, implying that he has taken her choice away from her about this. Randall knows this is true, and he can admit that there is a sliver of guilt somewhere deep down inside of him for it. But the guilt was never going to outweigh the need he has for sight of her, the curve of her, the sense of her.

"I'm sorry."

It is all he can think to offer, and he knows by the look on her face that his answer is inadequate. As much as he loves her, she always makes him feel this way. Randall knows it isn't intentional - Lix Storm is not vindictive like that. But it is his own self that has always felt inadequate next to her, like he was flying too close to her sun and sooner or later he must fall.

She sighs, reaches for her whiskey glass, swallowing the last golden sip. Randall's eyes are drawn to the hollow of her throat, the ring on her necklace. It isn't a taunt but it feels like one anyway. Lix moves away from her chair and perches on the edge of her desk in front of him, tucking the empty glass by her hip.

Out of something he can't explain, can't stop, his right hand goes to move the glass. His mind does not like it there, so close to the edge. It doesn't sit parallel with her things; it has to be moved. Randall accepts that he won't be happy, be calm, until it is settled some place else. He manoeuvres it next to her telephone, out of harm's way.

Lix says nothing, just raises an arched eyebrow at him and lets the silence unfold.

As result of his actions, he is awfully close to her now. It is unintentional but now he is there Randall finds he cannot move away. He's close enough to smell her perfume, her shampoo, the lingering scent of her favourite cigarettes. The perfume is different, the shampoo too, but the smooth richness of the tobacco hasn't changed. Suddenly he is years younger, full of far more optimism and potential than he is now, and she is there and around him and enclosing him, with red lips and brighter eyes. Years ago.

He breathes her in, guiltily, knowing he can't help it. He can't stop himself and her eyes flicker downward, away from him. Her breath hitches, and perhaps she feels it too. He can only hope that maybe Lix remembers how it used to be between them. Randall knows he could never forget, not even on his death bed will those memories fade. 

"The same cologne," he hears her murmur, so quietly. His knees are almost touching her legs, but he can't quite move that extra inch forward, even as his heart refuses to let him step back and away from her.

"Yes," he responds on the exhale, a gentle hush. Randall glances down at her, at her eyelashes resting against smooth cheeks, the elegant slope of her nose. She was always far too beautiful for him, and nothing has changed.

They are both frozen. A clock ticks loudly somewhere in the distance. Randall counts the seconds. Ten, eleven, twelve. Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen. He wants to fold this moment up and keep it inside his heart like the others.

"What are you doing here, Randall?" Lix whispers, her eyes remaining downward, still not looking at him, as if looking at him might cause something inside her to break a little more. But she doesn't force him away, doesn't move out of his space. If anything her back straightens and shoulders square with false determination. It only brings her body a fraction closer.

The fingers of his right hand, balancing on the desk near her hip, spread across the smooth wooden surface. After a moment they find what they are searching for, and press softly against her fabric-covered hipbone. The material of her trousers is rough to the touch, but Randall likes to think he can imagine the skin beneath, the way it would feel under his thumb. Lix exhales shakily and he follows suit before answering her.

"I told you," he replies, his head angling, tilting towards her. Their noses touch, slide against each other. He presses his forehead against hers, revelling in the fact that she lets him, does not resist even in the slightest. "I needed to see you."

It is only then that she raises her chin fully to meet his eyes and lets him kiss her. It is nothing at first, just a soft brush, like friends, or acquaintances. But then it isn't. Then it is everything and infinite, and Randall is flying, soaring, enveloped in her soft skin, her sweet mouth.

Her hands start at his shoulders, before smoothing down his shirt front, curling around the end of his tie, pulling him closer and closer until there is nowhere further to go. Her feet hook around the back of his knees, until he is tucked between her thighs. Her mouth opens against his. His hand still lingers on her hipbone, pressing harder now, but he is still reluctant to touch her too much. Randall will take what she gives but he will not force her hand or make her feel uncomfortable. This was not what he was expecting when he came to her door, and although he isn't ungrateful - far from it - there is a line in the sand that they are very close to crossing. But god help him, he will follow her across it if she leads him there.

Lix's mouth is soft and hot and her kisses feel familiar and yet still new. Randall knows that it has been many years, and no doubt there have been men since him (because what man could resist her?), but there have been few woman for him since Lix, and not one has ever measured up . She is the pinnacle to him, the dangerous evidence of what can happen when you put someone on a pedestal. But he wouldn't have undone it for all the world, even on the worst of days, even on the days so dark and lonely that he could only find solace in the bottom of a bottle.

"Lix," he whispers, before he can stop himself. He whispers it like a chant against her mouth, feels her smile against him. She grasps at the knot of his tie, undoing it with agile hands. He lets her, he will always let her. It is only then that Randall lets himself run his fingers up her arm, to that curve in her throat that he had always loved, to the nape of her neck, the soft curls there. He feels like a new man when she sighs against him, remembering the way they used to do this. 

It is not particularly soft or delicate. They had never really been that with each other. The need had always been too great, too furious for patience or restraint. Randall soaks it all up, the feel of her pressed against him, the way her mouth moves, the way her tongue glides, the way his body still reacts. Her hands fumble with the buttons on his shirt, and although his mind wants to protest that she needs to unbutton them from the bottom to the top rather than the other way around, he forces that thought down. He will not let this be tainted or betrayed by his own oddities, because it is _her_ after all these years and surely she is the exception.

She mutters his name against his neck, breath hot and fast. She guides his hands to her own buttons and he can barely grasp them for shaking so much. This is not what he expected but Randall's worship of her outweighs everything else. Her legs are pressed tight around his own and he thinks this must be what death feels like: an overwhelming sense of fear and excitement. His hand grazes her breast and she makes a sound so helpless that he can only kiss her again and again as she shrugs her blouse from her shoulders.

She is reaching for his the waistband of his trousers when suddenly there is a loud clatter in the corridor, echoing against the walls. The sound feels endless, and then it is followed by disembodied voices, growing nearer, laughing. 

It is probably only the cleaners, he knows, but it is enough to have shocked them out of the moment, jarred them to their senses. Reality has broken into their reverie, and it is all they can do to look at each other, ruffled and unkempt. They look ridiculous, like lovestruck teenagers, all sense of propriety and dignity long gone. Randall can feel the heat rising in his cheeks as he looks at her, lips swollen, skin scorched with his touch. Her chest rises and falls as she tries to catch her breath and in the end of he has to glance away. 

Lix is the one that moves first, managing to gather enough of herself together to retrieve her blouse from the desk behind her and start putting it back on. Randall takes the opportunity to do the same, fixing his shirt, tying his tie. In less than a minute they are outwardly presentable again even if he can still feel the graze of her teeth on his bottom lip. His pulse races, and without thought he reaches for the ring hanging from her throat. It is modest but all he could afford at the time, he recalls. Randall tries not to think about what it means that she still wears it. His fingers accidentally brush the skin underneath and this is what startles her the most, leaping away as if burnt, even though moments before he had held her under his hands, and she had let him eagerly. 

Lix finds her feet, pressing his body back from her. He steps away, eager to please, eager to do whatever she needs of him.

Their eyes meet. She _sees_ him. For the first time in a long time, he knows that she sees him.

Her hand instinctively curls around the necklace, hiding it from view. Perhaps the small diamond cuts into her palm, but he'll never know.

"This didn't happen," Lix says finally, her voice almost steady. But Randall knows her, and can hear that lump in her throat, even if her eyes appear hard and strong.

"This never happened," she repeats carefully, meaningfully. She is waiting for him to protest. Randall's heart stutters in his chest, the full meaning of her words sinking in. 

But because he loves her he will give her what she wants. Lix has always been the only exception to every rule he has ever made for himself. She is not ready and he can't blame her. He has had time to come to terms with the implications of his presence here. Her, only mere weeks, and never has the imbalance seemed so great until right now. So yes, he will give her what she wants. 

He nods in silent acknowledgement. Randall can't say the words, but surely this mute acceptance of her terms should be sufficient. Lix looks saddened, but relieved. She nods in return, her hand finally releasing the necklace and letting it fall back inside her blouse, out of sight.

With that, Randall turns to leave, determined not to hesitate despite the sickness building in the pit of his stomach. He almost does stop at the threshold, just to take one last glance of her, but his pride won't let him. 

He makes sure he closes the door behind him, the soft click echoing down the now-empty corridor. He pretends not to hear the single heart-wrenching sob that she emits beyond the door.

He walks away.


End file.
